Learning But Make It Glastonbury
Glastonbury has kicked off this week and at first glance, Glastonbury Festival and corporate learning seem worlds apart. One conjures images of muddy fields, epic headliners, and glitter-drenched revellers. The other? Well… often beige conference rooms, mandatory e-learning modules, and a fair bit less glitter.
But scratch the surface, and you'll find striking similarities, especially when it comes to building an intentional, engaging learning culture. Just as a festival line-up shapes the energy and impact of an event, your learning offerings define the rhythm of growth in your organisation.
So, what if we planned learning like Glastonbury curates its legendary line-up?
Let’s dive into how content strategy, learning pathways, and variety create a culture that feels more like a festival and less like a chore.
Headliners: The Mainstage of Learning
Every great festival has its headliners. This year's Glastonbury mainstage will play home to The 1975, Neil Young, and Olivia Rodrigo to name a few. The big names draw the crowds and create the sea of onlookers you see every year.
In your learning culture, the headliners are the essential, widely relevant topics. Think leadership development, digital literacy, emotional intelligence, or effective communication. These are the learning experiences that appeal to the majority and offer universal value.
Why you need them:
They reinforce core competencies.
They attract buy-in from employees and leadership alike.
They create momentum around learning.
But just as a festival can't rely on headliners alone (imagine five hours of Coldplay back to back...), your L&D strategy must be more than just the obvious hits.
Sideshows: Niche Needs, Surprising Impact
Every Glasto-goer has a story about stumbling upon an obscure artist on a tiny stage who blew them away. These acts may not be chart-toppers, but they offer richness, discovery, and depth.
In your learning ecosystem, hidden gems are niche or role-specific learning opportunities, things like data storytelling for analysts, trauma-informed leadership for HR, or cultural awareness for global teams. They may serve a smaller group, but they often deliver outsized impact.
How to support them:
Curate learning for special interest groups.
Offer opt-in pathways based on role, passion, or future goals.
Encourage “festival wanderers” aka employees exploring outside their job description.
These unexpected sessions keep your learning culture diverse, exciting, and human.
Stages & Pathways: Designing the Experience
A festival isn’t just a list of acts; it’s a carefully choreographed experience across multiple stages. Similarly, a strong learning culture isn’t just a collection of content. It’s about designing coherent, engaging pathways.
Think of:
Main Stage: Your centralised learning hub where the must-do sessions live.
Acoustic Tent: Peer-to-peer learning, fireside chats, and informal storytelling.
Dance Tent: High-energy, short-burst learning like microlearning, interactive simulations, or tactical learning.
Green Fields: Reflective, wellness-based learning spaces such as mindfulness, resilience, and psychological safety.
By creating diverse spaces and formats, you allow employees to choose the learning "vibe" that suits them. This autonomy is key to fostering engagement.
Self-Discovery Meets Structure
At a festival, some people plan every moment. Others go with the flow. Your learning strategy should reflect that balance too.
Design for both:
Structured learning journeys (e.g. new manager pathways or onboarding series).
Open-access libraries for self-directed exploration.
Use diagnostics, feedback tools, and internal data to offer “you might also like…” style recommendations just like Spotify or Netflix. This guided discovery helps people connect the dots between what they want and what they didn’t know they needed.
Culture Beyond Content
Ask any festival-goer: it’s not just the music, it’s the atmosphere. The same goes for learning.
A thriving learning culture doesn’t rely solely on what's taught, it relies on how it feels:
Are people encouraged to learn openly?
Do managers actively role-model learning?
Is failure framed as part of the journey?
Celebrate internal learning “acts” too such as featuring employee-led sessions, innovation showcases, or cross-team collaborations. This builds a sense of participation, not just attendance.
The Role of the Curator: You
Behind every great festival is a brilliant curator—someone who reads the crowd, spots the trends, and takes a few bold risks.
As an L&D leader, you’re not just delivering content. You’re:
Anticipating future skill needs.
Balancing popularity with purpose.
Bringing in diverse voices.
Creating moments of surprise and joy.
Don’t be afraid to programme something unconventional like a “silent disco” wellbeing session, a reverse mentoring series, or a learning quiz. These moments spark curiosity and create cultural stickiness.
Measure the Magic (Without Killing It)
Festival organisers use metrics like ticket sales, social buzz, setlist reactions, but they also know not everything can be quantified.
In L&D, yes you can track completion rates, engagement, skills gained. But don’t forget to capture:
Stories of growth.
Cross-functional collaboration that emerged.
The emotional impact of a learning moment.
Qualitative feedback, internal case studies, and learner storytelling give you the kind of feedback that data dashboards miss. They help you build a narrative, not just a report.
Glastonbury didn’t become iconic just by booking famous names. It earned its legendary status by cultivating a culture of discovery, depth, and unforgettable experiences - something people are drawn to, year after year.
The same holds true for learning within your organisation. When you approach your L&D strategy like a festival curator, you create something richer than just a training schedule. You build a learning culture that balances breadth and depth, speaks to both the collective and the individual, and makes space for experimentation, curiosity, and moments of genuine delight.
So whether you’re planning your version of Beyoncé or rolling out a mission-critical upskilling programme, remember this: your people won’t just remember what they learned, they’ll remember how it made them feel. That’s where the real magic lives.